


If on a winter's night a fangirl

by trinityofone



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, M/M, Meta, The Winchester Gospels, oh god the meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-01
Updated: 2010-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-30 20:13:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trinityofone/pseuds/trinityofone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Chuck,” Becky said, slowly and carefully and very, very seriously. “I think someone is trying to communicate with us through the fanfic.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> With deep apologies to Italo Calvino.

Chuck was passed out again. From the sex, not the booze, Becky thought with a sort of pride. This knowledge made her feel warm and a bit tingly, just like Chuck’s collection of scotch might. It didn’t help her sleep, though.

She had slept, briefly: drifted off with Chuck snoring and half-sprawled on top of her, which was comforting if not entirely comfortable. But then three a.m. had rolled around and Becky found herself once again wide awake. Just like meeting Sam Winchester and helping to stave off the apocalypse, having a boyfriend apparently didn’t magically cure her insomnia.

Becky was not someone to dwell on disappointment, however. She lay still for a few minutes, listening to Chuck’s heavy breathing and his occasional bouts of mumbling to himself before slipping carefully out from under his arm. The cold air was not kind to her naked body, and she winced her way over to her killer rabbit slippers. She picked up Chuck’s shirt from where it lay on the floor and pulled it on, swiping her hair out of the way. The idea of lounging around in her boyfriend’s tee made her grin, but the winter weather was against her and she soon had to add a pair of her own sweatpants and a sweater to the ensemble. And the odd-smelling blanket she’d snagged off the back of the couch. Curling into the lopsided chair in the corner of the spare room, she pulled her computer into her lap. The fan didn’t work so well, so with the laptop up and running, she was almost toasty.

After a moment’s hesitation, she logged into her [](http://samlicker81.livejournal.com/profile)[**samlicker81**](http://samlicker81.livejournal.com/) gmail account.

Becky had never been ashamed of her fannish activities—her hobby, her obsession, whatever you wanted to call it. Some people played golf, and some people knit, and Becky did this—what was the big deal? Of course, discovering that the subjects of her erstwhile activities were real had changed things a lot—and not in the ways Becky had expected. Not that Becky had _expected_ to find out that Sam and Dean and angels and demons and the _apocalypse_ were real—she wasn’t _crazy_ , after all—but prior to Chuck’s first call, she had, maybe, possibly, envisioned on occasion what it would be like to meet Sam, and those fantasies had involved a lot more of Sam ripping her clothes off and Dean being surprisingly okay with it, and a lot less of what had actually happened. In Becky’s head, Sam had always been enchanted by her instead of freaked, and Dean wasn’t a big gruff dude but instead the pretty blond uke Becky would have sworn the books described, and they all solved their pesky apocalypse problems in the space of a couple of paragraphs before they did sex the end.

Instead, Bobby ended up in a wheelchair and Becky ended up on Fandom Wank and it was months and months later and the world was still doomed and everyone was still miserable and the only people having sex were Becky and Chuck.

Becky was pretty sure that was not the way the story was supposed to go. Sure, certain parts (mostly the sex parts) were nice, and yeah, okay, Becky knew that reality was much more complicated than fanfic. But she would have liked it not to be, sometimes.

And so even though it was a bit weird, and even though she was currently about as popular as Ms. Scribe in certain parts of the internet, occasionally Becky went back to being [](http://samlicker81.livejournal.com/profile)[**samlicker81**](http://samlicker81.livejournal.com/) for a while.

Logging into her fandom account, Becky saw that she had new mail. The first message was a comment to the post she had made a couple months ago with photos from the 1st Annual Supernatural Con. Becky tensed: she thought she’d made the right decision not to close comments or delete the post, but it meant that she sometimes still got a certain type of response... Yup, it was another stupid mouse calling her a liar and a cheat and a “Victoria Bitter wannabe.” Becky archived it without reading it all. The con had been fun, despite/because of it turning out to be haunted, but it still bummed Becky out that the attendees had mostly been fanboys brought in through the magazine ads Chuck had placed, and not the fangirls Becky had tried to recruit through her website and her failed LJ comm, whom she had never been able to convince to believe her.

But that was over, that was in the past, she reminded herself, lifting her chin and repositioning her laptop. She’d win them over next year (if there was a next year), or maybe by then she’d be more into _Dr. Sexy_ or something and then she wouldn’t care.

The next message in her inbox was a PM from somebody whose name she didn’t recognize. Becky opened it with a combination of wariness and hope. _Hi!_ it began, already much too cheerful to be a troll. _You don’t know me—I’ve been lurking for a while—but I’ve always been a big fan of your work. I’m not sure if you still beta for people since you stepped down as webmistress of morethanbrothers.net, but I thought I’d ask just in case because I would love your insight on this story I’m working on. If you’re interested, this link’ll give you access to my googledocs. And if not I totally understand! I hope you’re doing all right after all the recent “controversy”—I understand why people are suspicious and find it hard to have faith, but I miss seeing you around the interwebs. Cheers and thanks, [](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/profile)[**renegadeangel**](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/)_

There was that warm feeling again, pooling gentle at the bottom of her belly. Chuck was great, and real, and frequently and enthusiastically naked, but Becky had still missed having online friends. She missed betaing for people and having long, goofy conversations about intriguing asides or odd inconsistencies in their shared source text. (Even though she now knew that the most likely explanation was, “Chuck was pretty wasted when he wrote that.”) Eagerly, she clicked on the googledocs link and hoped that the story would be good, something she could genuinely say she liked and maybe even help make better.

>   
> _If on a winter’s night a fangirl_
> 
> _By[](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/profile)[ **renegadeangel**](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/)_
> 
> _You are about to begin reading[](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/profile)[ **renegadeangel**](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/) ’s new fanfic,_ If on a winter’s night a fangirl. 

Crud, Becky thought, holding back on a sigh. It was in the second person. And it was some weird meta thing. Becky thought that fandom’s collective obsession with fourth-wall breaking metafiction was getting to be a bit much. This was really not the sort of story she wanted to read—she wanted something old-school, something romantic, something that recaptured what used to be her happy place. Did she really want to not only read, but beta a story like this? It was pushing 4 a.m. Chuck was snoring soundly in the next room. Maybe if she shut the computer and crawled back into bed with him, she could get some sleep...

Doubtful, though. And this girl’s PM had been so nice. Becky really ought to give her more of a shot. She returned her gaze to the screen and kept reading.

> _Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; Chuck is snoring rather loudly in the next room. In the morning, you should try to convince him to see a doctor: this may be a sign of a deviated septum._

The computer nearly slid off Becky’s lap and onto the floor, but it caught on her killer rabbit slippers’ ears. Becky grabbed at it with shaky hands, steadied it, stared. The words remained where they were, steady and black—decidedly _not_ a sleep-deprived hallucination. The rest of the paragraph continued to describe the racket Chuck was making and its probable causes, before suggesting that she make herself more comfortable—what lay ahead required her full attention.

It had to be a joke. A trick, a prank: it had to be. Someone getting back at her for her perceived deception: _Oh, so[](http://samlicker81.livejournal.com/profile)[ **samlicker81**](http://samlicker81.livejournal.com/) ’s gonna claim she met Carver Edlund, and that he introduced her to “the real Sam and Dean”? And then when she gets suitably mocked for that, she’s gonna switch to brazenly asserting that she’s hosting a_ Supernatural _convention with “Carver Edlund” and that “Sam and Dean” are going to be there, so why not book now via Paypal? Well, let’s see how this crazy wanker likes it when we mess with_ her...

Becky’s eyes stung. She tried not to let it get to her, she really did, but sometimes she couldn’t help it. Sure, Sam Winchester was real, and she had maybe helped him maybe-save the world, and she totally had a boyfriend now, but that didn’t change the fact that she had lost almost all her friends.

Becky tried to think rationally about what to do. Part of her want to slam the computer shut and passive-aggressively stomp around the house until Chuck woke up and gave her someone to talk to. Part of her wanted to write an angry message back to “[](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/profile)[ **renegadeangel**](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/) ” and vent her fury and frustration that way. And part of her wanted to message [](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/profile)[**renegadeangel**](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/), but adopt a tone of the nobly wounded and guilt the bitch into apologizing for making Becky feel in quick succession such happy hope and such crushing despair.

None of these, she knew, were particularly productive solutions, so after taking a few deep breaths, she did close the computer—gently, though: it wasn’t the Metallicomp’s fault—and shuffled into the kitchen. She’d coaxed Chuck into going to the actual store instead of the gas station quickie mart and so for once when she visited there was real food in the house. It was four o’clock in the morning, her boyfriend had a deviated septum and she was infamous on the internet: Becky decided that the best thing to do was bake.

* * *

“You should get up at four every morning!” Chuck enthused when he woke, several hours later, to the smell of her freshly-baked scones. Becky gave him a long, long look—a look that suggested that while all of Sam Winchester’s girlfriends might die, at least he never said anything to them that was that insensitive. Chuck fumbled with his knife and accidentally smeared jam on the tablecloth. “Er. I mean. I’m sorry that you couldn’t sleep.”

Becky shrugged. “I’m used to it,” she said, trying to inject some brightness back into her voice.

“Well, anyway, these are awesome,” Chuck said, brushing crumbs from his beard. “Even better than the marzipan,” he added with a grin.

Becky grinned back at him: she liked that they already had private jokes like this. Even though she was still slightly peeved at Chuck’s confession that he’d thrown her original batch of marzipan away just like all the other edible gifts his publisher had forwarded to him. “They could have been poisoned!” had been Chuck’s defense, which, yeah, the other fans’ stuff, maybe. But that batch of marzipan had been like her best batch _ever_.

The thought of other fans and their possibly-poisoned gifts made Becky think about the “story” she’d been trying not to think about again. She’d been stupid and hadn’t closed the tab before she shut her laptop, so she knew that in a way it was still there, waiting for her. She didn’t want to think about it, but the more she did, the more it skeeved her out. The story had mentioned Chuck by name—his _real_ name—and had mentioned that he was snoring in the next room _precisely when he was snoring in the next room_. That could be a coincidence, a supposition, but in the bright light of morning, it was starting to seem less and less like something an asshole troll could conceivably achieve. Becky had been right to be freaked out, she realized with a gnawing sense of horror, but she’d freaked out for entirely the wrong reason.

“Chuck,” she said suddenly, “I think Lucifer hacked my computer!”

Chuck spent several seconds nearly choking to death on a raisin. Fortunately, Becky proved to be a robust back-patter, and Raphael didn’t appear to intercede on behalf of Chuck’s life.

“What?” he finally managed to ask.

“Or maybe it was Zachariah,” Becky amended. She gave him a brief summation of what had happened.

“Wait, you still read fanfic?” Chuck stared at her with wide eyes and a curled lip. “ _Still_?”

“So?” Even though she was defending her internet porn habit, Becky felt righteous in her indignation.

“You know they’re real people,” Chuck hissed, blushing. “You’ve _met_ them.”

“You seriously want to launch a tired RPS debate right now? My laptop may be possessed!”

“Your laptop isn’t possessed,” Chuck said with a dismissive sigh.

“Are you saying you don’t believe me?”

“I’m saying,” Chuck said carefully, as if to a small child, “that it was the middle of the night and you may not have been thinking super clearly—”

Becky growled, turned on her heel, and stomped out of the room—a series of actions that might have been more effective if she hadn’t still been wearing her killer rabbit slippers. She snatched her laptop off the chair where she’d left it and stomped back. “There,” she said, thrusting the computer at Chuck. “See for yourself.”

Chuck gave her an annoyingly tolerant look and lifted the screen. His expression remained the same for a few seconds as the laptop woke up and he started to read. Then abruptly his eyes went wide and he sprang melodramatically backward. “Fuck, Becky! Are _you_ possessed? Why would you make me read that?”

This was not the reaction Becky had been expecting. She had kind of been hoping that Chuck would read the story, suck in a long breath, announce that they _needed to call Sam immediately_ , and then spend the time until the Winchesters arrived apologizing profusely to Becky for ever doubting her. Instead he was acting like she’d made him look at a picture of the goatse guy.

She turned the laptop toward herself and looked.

 

>   
> _Fumbling Towards Destiny_
> 
> _By[](http://destielgrrl.livejournal.com/profile)[ **destielgrrl**](http://destielgrrl.livejournal.com/)_
> 
> _Castiel lay naked on the altar, his pale body glowing like fine porcelain in the candlelight. Dean stood before him, quaking with equal parts worry and want. “Are you sure this is a good idea, Cas?” the hunter asked. “You’re sure you want to do this?”_
> 
> _“Yes, Dean,” the angel solemnly intoned. “This ritual may be the key to finding my Father._ Nothing _could be more important than that. We must do whatever is necessary to ensure He is found.”_
> 
> _“And a kinky angel sex ritual is what’s necessary, gotcha,” Dean said, trying to inject humor into his voice, but stumbling a little over the words. He couldn’t let Castiel know his secret: that this ritual was an all-too-perfect excuse, that he wanted this, wanted_ Cas _, more than he had ever wanted anything before in his life..._

Becky stared at her Judas of a computer in shock. “That’s not what it said before!” she insisted. “I swear, earlier it was some weird meta thing about me and you and how loud you snore.”

“Hey, that’s a legitimate medical condition!” Chuck protested weakly. “I was actually thinking I should maybe go to the doctor: I might have a deviated septum or something...”

“I mean, why would I even read this?” Becky asked the room at large as she scanned the rest of the page. “This isn’t even my pairing!” Though, whoa, it looked like the story got pretty impressively hot before too long...

She clicked back over to the tab containing the PM from [](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/profile)[**renegadeangel**](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/) , but it was gone: the comment from the mean anonymouse was what was at the head of her message queue. “This doesn’t make any sense,” Becky said, staring at her laptop, betrayed. “Chuck, I’m serious: the internet wouldn’t do this to me!”

Chuck still looked terrified from his accidental exposure to teh gay. “Maybe you have a virus?” he suggested. “A random gay-porn generating virus?” He ran a hand through his hair. “Man, I knew I shouldn’t have let you and Sera convince me to start e-publishing. The incest was bad enough, but now I’m indirectly responsible for blasphemous angel sex... Raphael is going to kill me.”

Becky was momentarily distracted by the thought that 1) Blasphemous Angel Sex was a pretty good name for a band, and 2) a gay porn virus didn’t sound too bad. However, she was fairly sure that wasn’t what was going on.

The last “story” she’d read had described what was going on at that precise moment—Becky reading fic, Chuck snoring. What if...what if it was still doing that?

“Chuck!” she said, grabbing at his arm. “What if this is like a vision? Maybe this is how you’re supposed to write what’s happening now that Zachariah’s hacked your brain!”

“This?” Chuck’s voice rose to an alarming pitch. “You think _this_ is part of the gospel?” He took a deep breath and seemed to force himself to calm down. “This is porn,” he said, gesturing at the screen as one might indicate an unseemly and possibly vomitous mess, “not prophecy.”

Becky huffed. “God, Chuck, you can be so narrow-minded. There’s an easy way to find out—give Dean a call.”

“I’m not calling Dean and asking him if he’s having improbably located ritualistic gay sex with Cas!” Chuck squeaked. He looked scandalized.

“Well, then I’ll do it.” Becky thrust out her hand. “Give me your phone.”

Chuck balked.

“It’s just as likely to disprove my theory as prove it,” Becky said reasonably.

This got him rolling his eyes at least. He passed her his cell, muttering, “ _Just_ as likely. Right.”

Dean picked up fairly quickly. “Chuck. What’s up?” He did not sound out of breath, which did not speak well for Becky’s argument. She found herself oddly disappointed.

Nevertheless, she pressed on. “This is Becky,” she said, and Dean immediately groaned.

“Sam isn’t here right now,” he said.

_Sam_ , Becky thought wistfully, but she needed to concentrate: “I want to talk to you,” she said. She could all-too-easily picture Dean’s eyebrow twitch upward.

“Oh, great. Fantastic.”

_Have you sexed up your angel recently?_ Becky wasn’t shy, but she found it more difficult to squeeze the question out than she’d thought. RPS _was_ a whole new level of weird when you actually knew the RP involved. “You haven’t performed any rituals lately, have you?” she asked instead.

“What? What do you care?”

“We’re trying to determine if Chuck’s visions are the real deal again,” Becky lied—smoothly, she thought.

“No we are _not_ ,” said Chuck in the background, which didn’t help.

“Put Chuck on the phone,” Dean demanded.

Reluctantly, Becky handed over the cell. She liked the Dean from the books _so_ much better. She’d always gotten the impression that he was all vulnerable and sensitive and stuff. Real!Dean was just...surly.

“I don’t know, man,” she heard Chuck say. “She’s got this crazy idea that...you know, never mind. I think you’ve answered our question. Sorry to bug you.”

“Ask him about the altar,” Becky said, waving her hand in front of Chuck’s face frantically. “Just say ‘altar’ and see if he gets uncomfortable!”

“I think you already made him uncomfortable,” Chuck said, with the line still connected. She could hear Dean snort before he hung up and Chuck snapped the phone shut. Great, he had totally sold her out. Some boyfriend. _Would Sam do that?_ she felt like asking him. He always got really awkward and apologetic and quiet when she compared him to Sam.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” she said, folding her arms. “He avoided answering me and you didn’t really ask him anything!”

“Becky.” Chuck rolled his eyes again. “There is no way that there’s a ritual to find God that involves sex on an altar. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard—and I’m saying this as someone who wrote a whole book about a racist truck.”

Becky had to concede that _Route 666_ was not Chuck’s—or, she supposed, _reality’s_ —best effort. For one thing, Sam wasn’t in it enough. But that was all beside the point: something important and real _was_ going on here, and it was super frustrating that she was the only one who saw it. “Maybe there are more clues in the story,” she said, suddenly struck by the notion. Neither of them had finished reading the thing, after all. She reached out to turn the laptop back toward her, but Chuck reached out too, trying to twist it back.

“Come on, Becky, no more gay angel porn, please. Can’t we try to have a normal morning for once?”

They grappled for a moment, Chuck swatting ineffectually and somewhat girlishly at her fingers. “It’s my computer! I can look at whatever I want on my computer. I didn’t touch those copies of _Busty Asian Beauties_ I found behind the toilet, did I?”

“What? Those aren’t mine!” Chuck said hastily. His grip slackened and Becky took advantage of the moment to wrench the computer away. In the process, however, she hit the Refresh button with the side of her hand. The page of text they’d been looking at vanished, then reappeared.

It was not, Becky saw instantly, at all the same as it had been. Not even the names were the same: there was ‘Dean Smith’ screaming at her from the very first line.

>   
> _Stretching the Limits of Mind and Body_
> 
> _By[](http://downward-dog.livejournal.com/profile)[ **downward_dog**](http://downward-dog.livejournal.com/)_
> 
> _Dean Smith was feeling tense. The pressure was on at Sandover Bridge & Iron and the Director of Sales and Marketing needed to relax. Kripke in Advertising had given him the name of his private yoga instructor, and Dean hoped the guy would be able to make the executive feel loose enough to do his job._
> 
> _“Hi, I’m Castiel Angel,” said the wiry looking man who arrived at Dean’s office that evening. He had lightly muscled arms, dark, tousled hair, and a soul patch on his chin. “Would you like to get started?”_
> 
> _*~~*~~~*~~*_
> 
> _Castiel was helping Dean stretch out his hamstrings, hoisting Dean’s leg into the air and pressing himself against Dean’s body. Dean was embarrassed to find himself starting to get hard. He was_ straight _—he couldn’t be attracted to a_ man _! He blushed and looked away, but the yoga instructor caught Dean’s chin in his hand and turned the businessman’s face back toward his. “It’s okay,” Castiel said, staring at him with blistering azure eyes. “I’m just here to make you feel good. Would you like me to make you feel good?”_
> 
> _Dean could only nod as Castiel moved his mouth down to the bulge in Dean’s slacks..._

Becky frowned. “Dean/Cas _again_?” Was the universe trying to tell her something?

“Oh God, not _more_ ,” said Chuck.

“No, this is different,” Becky said, moving past her disappointment at the lack of Wincest. (It had lost some of its charm, anyway—Sam could totally do better.) She brought the laptop back over to the table, puzzling at the screen. “This is...weird. How many books in the new series has Sera put up so far?”

“Uh, through the big Alastair one. Whatchamacallit.”

Sera, Chuck’s publisher, did most of his titling for him, and half the time Chuck couldn’t even remember what the titles _were_. Becky knew, though. With the new ebook series she’d even totally helped beta.

“ _On the Head of a Pin_ ,” she said. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, you know she sends me the freakish Poser art to ‘approve,’ and believe me, I am not going to be forgetting the creepy _Saw_ ripoff she came up with for that one anytime soon.”

“So the only people who’ve read the one after that are me and you and her?”

Chuck nodded. “If she even has, yet. I only sent the edited file to her two days ago. And she’s pretty obsessive but I assume she does have, like, some sort of a life...”

Becky pushed the laptop into Chuck’s personal space. “Then how is someone writing fic about the next book?” she asked, feeling as triumphant in her reveal as Sherlock Holmes.

Chuck stared slack-jawed at the screen. After a minute or so, he began shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Uh, wow.” He rubbed his hands on his flannel PJ pants. “I feel really confident about my own writing skills right now.”

Becky was about to concur when his eyes narrowed and he turned his head up toward her. “Did _you_ write this?”

Becky felt like she’d been slapped. “How could you even _ask_ that?”

“Okay, I know, it doesn’t have _Sam_ in it...” Chuck waved a dismissive hand.

“Um, and it’s _bad_ ,” Becky said indignantly. “Do you think I’m a bad writer?”

Chuck had the decency to blanche. “No, no. I meant as a joke—you wrote it as a joke, right? You’re having me on?”

He looked like he really hoped the answer would be yes. In other circumstances, Becky might have been more inclined to ease him toward the truth, but she’d been up since four a.m. baking scones and this conversation was making her feel like she was bashing her head against a brick wall.

“Chuck,” she said, slowly and carefully and very, very seriously. “I think someone is trying to communicate with us through the fanfic.”

In retrospect, Becky could see why Chuck started laughing hysterically, but at the time it really cheesed her off.

* * *

In the end, the only one she was able to convince that she was onto something was Castiel. She texted him from Chuck’s phone while Chuck was in the shower. Becky had never met him before, but from what she’d read, he seemed pretty serious, and she figured a serious angel would therefore believe her that this was serious business.

It wasn’t until he appeared in front of her, looking curious and slightly alien in his rumpled trenchcoat, that Becky realized that her plan relied on her showing an angel porn about himself.

“Becky.”

She couldn’t help it—she shivered a little when he said her name. Man, Chuck had only scraped the _surface_ with his description of Castiel’s voice. When he gave her the next book to go over, she was totally going to encourage him to elaborate.

“Where’s Chuck?”

“Um, I’m the one who texted you, not Chuck.” She stared down at the murderous eyes of her killer rabbit slippers, feeling overwhelmed in a way that felt completely different from the emotions evoked by Sam. “I need some help. Something weird’s been going on with my computer.”

Castiel’s head tilted to the side—oh my god, it was _exactly_ like she’d pictured! “I’m afraid I am not well-versed in computer repair.”

She laughed, much harder and far longer than was necessary. Fuck, what was wrong with her? She’d delivered to Sam Winchester _vital information_ ; why was Dean’s dorky little angel making her act like such a n00b?

“No, it’s not broken—I think it might be possessed? Someone’s sending me fic that’s full of things that are impossible for some random fangirl to know. True things! Well,” she added, blushing, “some of them are true. Others I’m not so sure.” Chuck’s draft of the upcoming book certainly hadn’t included anything about Dean Smith having sex with his soulpatch-sporting yoga instructor who was also an angel of the Lord. “But it has to mean something. Doesn’t it?”

Castiel looked, perhaps understandably, confused. Becky flushed when she realized she would have to backtrack.

“Um, gosh, okay. Fanfiction is—”

“I am aware of the phenomenon,” said Castiel, his eyes flickering over her. Like he was maybe sort of in on the joke—or possibly unaware that such a thing as “jokes” even existed.  
br />“Right. Good.” Becky tried not to think too hard about the fact that angels knew she wrote gay porn on the internet. God, she hoped Castiel didn’t know about Bibleslash—although she supposed that to him, all her innocently written _Supernatural_ fic was just as bad. “Um. I guess I better just show you.”

She turned her laptop toward Castiel, swiping her head over the trackpad to wake it up. “See?” she said.

She watched as the angel’s eyes moved across the screen—they _were_ a really pretty shade of blue. She wouldn’t say _azure_ though. Maybe _cerulean_...

Castiel shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly and he straightened up, his hands curling into fists at his sides. “This story is apocryphal.”

Becky nodded. “I know, but see, it takes place in the AU from when Zachariah mind-whammied everyone and nobody could write about that because no one knows about it yet except me and Chuck and Chuck’s publisher, maybe. Oh, and you guys, of course. And Zachariah. Do you think this is all some evil plan of Zachariah’s?”

Castiel shoulders, impossibly, grew even stiffer. “I think you have shown me the wrong document.” He turned the computer back toward her.

>   
> _On a Quest for the Truth_
> 
> _By[](http://twinkster.livejournal.com/profile)[ **twinkster**](http://twinkster.livejournal.com/)_
> 
> _Castiel pushed Dean back into the supply closet, reveling in the supple strength of the young hunter’s 17-year-old frame. “I can’t keep coming to you like this,” the angel whispered, trying to keep his distance but unable to entirely resist the play of Dean’s slim fingers in his hair, on the inside of his thigh._
> 
> _“You afraid we’re going to get caught?” Dean asked huskily. “Isn’t that half the fun?”_
> 
> _“Nevertheless, we must be more subtle in our approach. I will not desert you, Dean,” the angel promised, meeting Dean’s green gaze with his own cerulean orbs. “If you look for me, you will find me. I_ want _to be found. Please don’t forget that. Even when the search becomes hard...”_
> 
> _“Want to see what else is hard?” Dean interrupted with a waggle of his eyebrow. Castiel thought briefly of protesting, but his time in this time was short, and Dean so lusciously ripe and untouched. Castiel couldn’t help reaching out and_  
> 

“Oh my God, I am so sorry!” Becky slammed the computer shut. This was more uncomfortable than when people asked actors about fanfic at cons. “That was _not_ the story I meant to show you. It keeps changing! And see, actually, that’s sort of my point—that shouldn’t be possible. Someone—or some _thing_ —is making it happen. I think whatever it is is trying to tell us something.”

“I would not trust any message from this source,” Castiel said definitively. “It cannot be given credence if it believes I would take advantage of Dean in such a manner.”

“No, I know,” Becky assured him. “I think it’s maybe a code? Like maybe there are encrypted messages in it? But it keeps changing before I can figure it out.”

“I will remember this one,” Castiel said. “Unfortunately.”

“Sorry,” Becky muttered again. She really had to hope that this awkward “show an angel underage gay porn about himself” scene never made it into the gospels.

She heard Castiel shift beside her, and something in the movement made her look up again. “On the off chance that you are correct, perhaps you should try to recollect all you can of the previous stories.”

“Oh, good idea!” Becky darted over to Chuck’s desk and returned with a pad and pen. Castiel had opened Becky’s laptop again, and was frowning at the screen. “It’s gone,” he told her.

“Is there a new one?” she asked, stooping to look over his shoulder. The empty screen before them answered the question for him.

“What did you do? Did you click on something?”

Anxiously, she tried to push him aside but it was like shoving against the side of a semi. Castiel’s eyes flickered toward her, betraying what may have been a hint of annoyance. “I didn’t do anything. It simply isn’t there.”

“Well, lemme bring my googledocs folder back up! Maybe there’ll be a link to it!” She pushed into his personal space and started typing.

“I am beginning to see what Dean means,” Castiel remarked—rather nonsensically, Becky thought.

“Shit! It’s really gone. And I don’t have any more PMs or anything!”

Castiel shot her a blank stare. “Prime Ministers,” he said after a moment.

“ _What_?”

“What?”

“Becks, I’m sorry for what I said to you before. Let me make it—fuck!”

Chuck bolted out of the room, grabbing for Becky’s discarded blanket as he went.

“He must have been cold,” Castiel said, staring after the departed prophet.

“No, it’s always like that,” Becky said without thinking. Then she blushed and returned her gaze resolutely to the computer, thankful that Castiel seemed mostly oblivious. “Why would it just vanish?” she asked.

“Perhaps the message, if there is one, has been delivered in its entirety,” Castiel suggested. “Or perhaps...”

For a few seconds the angel appeared to be staring vacantly into space. Then, “‘I can’t keep coming to you like this,’” he said—recited, Becky realized. “‘If you look for me, you will find me. I—’”

“‘Want to be found’!” Becky finished with him. “You’re a genius, Cas!” She couldn’t quite stop herself from bouncing on her heels and clapping her hands a little. Castiel stared at her. “Er, that is, if I can call you Cas? Dean does and it seems like almost everyone else is starting to but I don’t want to presume...”

“It’s fine,” Castiel—Cas!—interrupted. “I have to thank you for bringing this to my attention. Now—where do you think we should start looking?”

“Um. Maybe LJ? Whoever or whatever sent me a PM—a private message—through LJ, so maybe they—maybe he/she/it has an account? But LJ’s really big. Maybe we should try my website? Or my former website, I guess. That would make sense. Except, wait, so far none of the stories have been Wincest—I wonder what that means? Anyway my site’s a Wincest site so I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I believe I am somewhat out of my depth,” Castiel said. His tone sounded almost wry.

Chuck slunk back into the room, much more fully clothed. “Oh, you’re still here,” he said, spotting Castiel. “I was hoping that when I almost died of embarrassment, Raphael would have come back and smote you again.”

Becky and Castiel both glared at him.

Chuck let out an uncomfortable laugh. “Er, too soon? Sorry. Sorry, Cas. Weird morning.”

“I understand. Becky has shown me the messages she has been receiving via the pornographic compositions of your writing’s fans.”

Chuck appeared to choke on the air in his mouth. “She’s been _what_?”

Castiel remained unruffled by this outburst. “As...unconventional as the mode of communication may be, I believe she is correct in concluding that some sort of correspondence is being attempted. Unfortunately, it seems our primary method of receiving these messages is no longer viable.”

“I guess we’re just going to have to read a lot of fic and see if we can find anything that looks suspicious?” Becky said.

Castiel nodded—a tiny, controlled movement. “Precisely.”

Chuck sank brokenly into a chair. “I’m being punished for something. It’s the hookers, isn’t it? I’m being punished for the hookers?”

“Hookers?” said Becky. _Busty Asian Beauties_ was one thing, but...

“It would be hypocritical for me to judge you for indulging in such a practice,” Castiel told Chuck, almost gently. “I too have visited a den of iniquity...”

That sounded like a fic right there. The lines between reality and fiction were once again blurring. Or it was possible that Becky was losing it.

“So are you guys gonna help me read a lot of gay porn or what?” she asked.


	2. Chapter 2

Before long, Castiel decided that they would find what they were looking for more quickly if they had more people and more computers to aid in their search. He blipped away, then blipped back again not long after with Sam, Dean, and their laptops. Becky spent a moment just basking in the sight of Sam: even though his shoulders were hunched, they looked _amazing_ , broad and strong beneath that worn plaid shirt...

In the kitchen Chuck was banging around; he emerged a second later with two mostly-full bottles of scotch. “Hey, guys,” he said wearily. “I think we’re gonna need plenty of booze for this...”

“I’m still a little confused,” Sam said. “What exactly are we doing?”

“Hi, Sam,” Becky heard herself say, as if from very far away.

Sam twitched. “Yeah, hi. _Why_ are we here?”

“We’re here to search through the apocryphal compositions of your disciples for what may be the communications of a powerful entity,” Castiel said. Despite being an angel, he looked like he might be having a modicum of difficulty keeping a straight face.

“He means that the two of them have decided to make us read a lot of creepy porn,” Chuck translated, sloshing scotch into a glass.

“Cas.” Dean conveyed the rest of this statement by putting his head in his hands.

Sam was considerably more verbal: “No. No no no no. Cas, man, I have been there and I do not want to go back. Please don’t make me go back.”

“What’s creepier,” Becky felt the need to ask the room, “a bit of smut on the internet—or _hookers_?” She shot Chuck a glare.

Chuck made a few half-hearted sounds of protest and spilled more scotch.

Castiel ignored all of them and returned to Becky’s poor overworked computer. “I seem to have found a promising starting place,” he said after a few minutes, his tone level and unaffected. “Although I’m not sure I understand all of the terminology—what is a ‘kink meme’?”

Dean practically flew to Castiel’s side, Becky doing her best to swallow her snort. “Cas, you know, why don’t you let me handle this and you can, um, coordinate.”

“I thought research was not of interest you?”

“What can I say,” Dean was carefully trying to steer Castiel out of the chair and away from the corrupting internets, “I’m suddenly in the mood.”

“Very well, then.” Castiel got up, looking quietly pleased with himself.

“Sammy, if you think I’m going through this on my own, you’ve got another thing coming.” Dean pushed Becky’s laptop over to her—clearly making a heroic effort not to comment on her _Supernatural_ -themed desktop (Becky was just glad she’d taken the manip one down)—and opened his own. Sam slunk over and took the seat next to him—and across from Becky. Becky grinned at him over the top of her screen, which for some reason seemed to have a poor effect on his posture.

“What exactly are we looking for?”

“Anything that seems strange.”

Dean snorted. “Sure, I’ll let you know when I locate some needles in this mountain of needles.”

“It said,” Becky said tightly, “that if we looked for it, we’d find it. That it wanted to be found.”

Another snort—from Sam this time. “Yeah, because hiding a message in a piece of incestuous porn indicates total transparency to me.”

Becky glanced up. “Inces—oh, no. It was Dean/Cas.”

“It was _what_?” Dean’s fingers leapt away from his keyboard as if burned. He wheeled on Cas. “Did you _know_ about this?”

“I was made aware, yes.” Castiel’s expression conveyed innocence, perhaps a tad of genuine puzzlement. “I do not see what difference it makes.”

Dean stuttered for a moment, then simply cocked a thumb in his brother’s direction. This only made Sam laugh harder...until, all of a his eyes widened and immediately he sobered. “Wait,” he said. “How do any of these internet fans even know about Cas? The books only went as far as Dean going to Hell.”

Both Winchesters turned on Chuck, who was cowering over by his desktop computer with his bottle of scotch. “Look—” he said. “I can explain—”

“Dammit, Chuck!”

Sam sprang to his feet. He was very, very tall and very, very muscular. Beside him, Chuck seemed to shrink even more, curling in on himself. Becky’s chest constricted. To her vague surprise, she found herself rushing to Chuck’s side, putting herself bodily in between him and Sam (although Sam was still on the other side of the table and had done little more than stand and clench his fists). “Hey,” she snapped. “Leave him alone! He’s a Prophet of the Lord—he’s _supposed_ to spread the gospel!”

Sam rolled his eyes, but he sank back down again. “Yeah, thanks a lot, Chuck. You’re really a great help to us. All this smut that the devoted fans of your ‘gospel’ are writing is really helping us in the fight against Lucifer.”

“I can’t help how the text is interpreted,” Chuck protested quietly. He offered Becky his drink, which she declined. He accepted her gentle shoulder rub, however. His skin was warm beneath his shirt and it felt good to feel the tension in his muscles ease beneath her fingers. “Like, the author is dead and stuff.”

“If he’s not careful, he will be,” Sam muttered. But his eyes were back on his computer screen again.

The next few hours passed quickly, if oddly. Castiel poured over Becky’s notes with an increasingly deep crease in his forehead. Chuck kept getting or offering to get everyone drinks, then food, and basically made any excuse he could to not have to spend any time at a computer or even in the room with the computers. Becky clicked around the internet diligently and listened to Sam and Dean let out the occasional pained groan along with the occasional odd exclamation.

**DEAN** : Hey, Sam—did you ever think about Bela and Ruby getting it on?

**SAM** : What does mpreg mea...okay, never mind!

**SAM** : Becky, what was your penname again?  
 **BECKY** : Um.  
 **SAM** : Because I think I might be reading one of your stories here.  
 **BECKY** : Er.  
 **SAM** : And I have to say...  
 **BECKY** : ( _inarticulate noise_ )  
 **SAM** : You spelled _rapturous_ wrong.  


 **SAM** : Okay, I don’t think that’s physically possible.  
 **DEAN** : ( _craning his neck to look at Sam’s screen_ ) No, I could do that.  
 _Sam stares at him._  
 **DEAN** : ( _suddenly defensive_ ) I’m not saying I _want_ to! ( _mumbling_ ) But I could.

It did not surprise Becky at all that Dean was the first to crack, to let out a deep sigh and push his laptop away in disgust. “This is stupid and pointless. I don’t know what we’re looking for, I don’t know _why_ we’re looking for it, and now I’m never going to be able to look at a grapefruit the same way again.”

Becky raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah, _that_ story. Yeah, that’s not for the faint of heart.”

Dean ignored her and turned to look at Castiel. “Cas, I know you think this is important, but I’m not getting it, man. What do you really think this is gonna turn up?”

Castiel smoothed out Becky’s notes and set them on the table. “I had hoped—” he started to say, but a giddy burst of laughter from Sam interrupted him.

“Sorry, sorry,” Sam said. He bit his lip and gave Dean a devious look. “It’s just that I just stumbled upon a _masterpiece_ called _Heeds the Signs and Sends the Message_. It’s about you and a certain Dr. Sexy.”

Dean’s face smoothed out into a grim mask. “What.”

“Oh, I didn’t know anyone had written a _Supernatural_ / _Dr. Sexy_ crossover,” Becky said.

“A crossover?” said Sam.

“Yeah, you know, a story in which two fictional universes collide. Like, say, Mr. Spock beams down on a strange planet and it turns out to be, I don’t know, Krypton or something.”

“Oh,” said Sam. “I just figured this took place when we got stuck in TV land. It’s hard to tell, ’cause all Dean and Dr. Feelgood seem interested in is making out.”

“Yeah, very funny.” Dean looked flushed and not very happy about it. “You want me to find the one where you did it with a Wendigo? There’s plenty of quotable material in there, Sammy. Lemme just go back through my history...”

“Oh, you want quotes?” said Sam. He straightened up and lowered his pitch until he had achieved a voice appropriate for Dramatic Reading. “ _What was it about Dr. Sexy that made him so very sexy? Dean wondered. It wasn’t just the cowboy boots and the artfully styled hair. No, it was much more than that, Dean knew, even as he arched into the doctor’s touch, his deft surgeon’s fingers bringing the blond hunter to the brink of ecstasy_.”

“See?” Dean attempted to interrupt. “These writers can’t even get my hair color right. They’re obviously full of it.”

“I think you’re about to be full of something.” Sam’s voice dropped again. “ _Perhaps, Dean considered, it was something in the way he moved, in the confident sway of his labcoat as he stalked the hospital halls. Or perhaps it was the force of his stare_ —quit it, Dean, I am _reading_ a piece of _literature_ — _the force of his stare are he caught Dean’s eyes with his own powerful blue gaze, his hand hot on Dean’s shoulder, digging roughly into the mark he’d_ —whoa.”

Dean stopped trying to tug the computer away from his brother and expelled a forceful breath. “Finally get to be too much for you?”

“No, well, uh.” Sam looked suddenly uncomfortable, a blush spreading across his cheeks. “Turns out you were having a dream, and Dr. Sexy just turned into, uh.” Sam scratched at his ear and shot a guilty glance across the room. “Into Cas.”

“Ooh,” said Becky, genuinely impressed. “Good one!”

“What are you talking about?” Dean growled. “That is fucking stupid. The one where a lust demon locks us all in the trunk of the car made more sense.”

“Wait,” Castiel said, coming closer. “ _Does_ this story make reference to the time you were...stuck in TV land?”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know, I wasn’t really reading it that closely. Does it matter?”

“Chuck has only published accounts of your travails through early last year.”

“Ooh!” Becky clapped her hands.

“Wait, so this is a clue?” Sam swiveled his gaze between the computer and Castiel. “ _This_ is a clue?”

Dean’s complexion had returned to its normal, much less scarlet, tone. He gave his brother a firm clap on the back. “You liked reading it so much. Why don’t you go over it _real careful_ , Sam.”

“Whatever. Now I know what was really going on when you had that dream about ‘saving Cas from demons.’”

Dean flushed scarlet again. “You know what?” he said. “I don’t care if this story has the solution to the freakin’ _Da Vinci Code_ in it. I’m done.”

“Dean...” Cas tried to given him a reassuring touch on the shoulder, but Dean shrugged away from him violently.

“No. Heaven and Hell have spent the last two years trying to make me their bitch. I don’t need to read about becoming yours, too.”

Becky watched the two of them stare at each other. She felt the sudden urge to take off her sweater.

It was Castiel who first dropped his gaze, who looked away. Something about this seemed to satisfy Dean, or at least freed him up to fold his arms and glare at the rest of them.

“Erm,” said Chuck, “maybe we should take a break and go get a drink?”

“You’ve been drinking all day,” Becky pointed out—reasonably, she felt.

But, “I’d like to get out of the house,” Sam said, nodding his agreement. The Judas.

That seemed to be enough for everyone. Coats were donned, and a general migration toward the door began. Only when his hand was on the knob did Chuck seem to realize that Becky was still standing in the middle of the living room in her slippers. “Becks? Aren’t you coming?”

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want to forget Becky,” she heard Sam mutter.

Becky was glad she’d kept her sweater on. She tugged the fabric down over her fingers. “I think I’ll just stay here.”

Chuck glanced back and forth between the group at the door and her. “Are you sure? I mean, it won’t be the same without you there.”

Dean snorted.

“I think I’ll just stay here,” Becky repeated carefully.

“Okay, well. We’ll be back soon.” Chuck came over and pressed an awkward kiss to her forehead. Becky resisted the urge to grab him by the collar and French him loudly and messily in front of everyone. She felt, suddenly and sharply, embarrassed.

They stepped outside, three men and an angel, Castiel’s gaze lingering on her a moment before he pulled the door shut tight.

When they were gone, Becky let out a sigh, forced her shoulders to relax. She went into the kitchen and made herself some soup. Carrying her bowl back into the living room, she eyed the abandoned laptops with a feeling of great ambivalence. She _knew_ she was right—she knew it. And logically, the best thing for her to do would be to use this time to keep searching and _prove_ she was right. On the other hand, she was pretty sure that if she spent another second on the Pit of Voles...

She sat down at her computer and tentatively opened her instant messaging program. She wanted to talk to someone; she was having a moment of desperately missing all her old online friends. When the program booted up, a list of their usernames appeared at the side of her screen, but most of them were either offline or away. (Or blocking her, she couldn’t help but think.) She hesitated for a moment, then double clicked on one name.

**samlicker81** : hey, how are you?

After several long and soup-filled minutes, she got a response.

**shutyrcakehole** : sorry, im busy right now. cant really talk.

A few seconds later, **shutyrcakehole** joined the ranks of the away.

Becky took a deep breath. All right, fine. It was fine. She was totally fine.

After a couple more minutes and some careful inhalations and maybe a sip or two of Chuck’s scotch, Becky was feeling calm again. Better yet, she knew what she wanted to do. She would make herself feel better. She would write.

She opened a fresh Word document and stared at the blinking cursor. But _what_ to write? Maybe, she thought, maybe _now_ would be the perfect time to begin working on her brilliant original novel that would catapult her to fame and fortune and earn her her own slew of fangirls. Maybe, if she started now, characters and plots and a universe all her own would pour from her fingertips and onto the page, and finally, finally, she would show the world what she could really do.

Or she could write Sam/Castiel fic. That could be kind of hot.

Somehow, though, it wasn’t what ended up coming out.

>   
> _All Will Be Revealed_
> 
> _By[](http://samlicker81.livejournal.com/profile)[ **samlicker81**](http://samlicker81.livejournal.com/)_
> 
> _“There are so many stars,” Castiel said, stepping out onto the porch._
> 
> _Dean followed his gaze, Cas’ warmth at his side a steadying force. “Is that what Heaven looks like?”_
> 
> _Dean could feel Castiel turning to look at him askance, and he chuckled before the words were even out of the angel’s mouth. “Heaven is not in outer space, Dean.”_
> 
> _“What?” He feigned surprise. “I have it on good authority that you all hang around on fluffy clouds, playing harps and peeping down women’s blouses from thousands of miles up. Heaven’s one big toga party.”_
> 
> _He tugged Cas down the steps with him. Their breath misted in the cold night air, and Dean huffed, deliberately, grinning as the white cloud formed and dispersed._
> 
> _“You’re in a good mood, Dean,” Castiel observed._
> 
> _“Are you surprised?” Dean asked._
> 
> _“No.” He caught a glimpse of Cas smiling to himself, quietly. “Just pleased.”_
> 
> _They drifted down the sidewalk, the little neighborhood street snug in its silence, in its tightly shuttered night. “You’re just itching to say ‘I told you so,’ aren’t you, Cas?”_
> 
> _Castiel quirked an eyebrow. “That would not be very angelic of me, would it?”_
> 
> _Dean elbowed him softly. “Go on. You can if you want. It’s only fair.”_
> 
> _Cas glanced at him skeptically. Dean nodded his assurance, expression open and happy, surprising even himself that the smile came so easily. After a moment, Castiel inclined his own head. “I told you so, Dean,” he said, slow and deliberate._
> 
> _Dean laughed. “There, perfect! Now doesn’t that feel better?”_
> 
> _Castiel glanced up at the sky again, at the dark tapestry of stars where Heaven wasn’t. Not that it mattered anymore. “I already feel better, Dean, than I ever thought I would again.”_
> 
> _“Do you now?” Dean’s heart began to race._
> 
> _Cas looked momentarily confused by this change in tone. “Yes?”_
> 
> _“Well, then I think it’s going to be my turn for ‘I told you sos,’” Dean said._
> 
> _“Why?”_
> 
> _“Because I bet I can make you feel even_ better _.”_
> 
> _Dean’s hand fit easily under the curve of Castiel’s chin. Dean could remember his panic, his humiliation and fear of a few hours ago, but there was none of that now, just Cas’ mouth pressing against his so sweet, the warmth of his arms wrapping around him and the taste of him, crackling against his tongue like bottled lightning. Cas was instantly eager for it, there with him—it didn’t need to be broken apart or analyzed or discussed. They knew each other too well for that._
> 
> _When they came up for air, Cas’ cheeks were red and Dean’s lips warm._
> 
> _“Told you,” he said._

“Jesus, Cas! I _told_ you!”

Becky started; she felt like she was rising from a deep haze.

“It seemed like a logical assumption.”

They were standing in the entryway, cold air rushing in behind them. Sam caught the open door and ushered Chuck in in front of him, then mercifully shut it tight. He caught sight of Dean’s glower and steered a wide path around him.

“Hey, Becky,” he said tiredly.

Becky barely looked up from where she was hastily saving and shutting Microsoft Word. She wasn’t sure what had come over her.

“A girl who wants to ‘show you her snowglobe collection’ isn’t actually interested in collectibles, Cas!” Dean continued to rage.

“She seemed quite interested.” Castiel’s answering voice of protest was calm. “She described several of them to me in detail.”

“I think Cas was more interested in the globes she had with her,” Chuck confided to Becky. “If you know what I mean.”

He made cupping gestures in front of his chest, just in case she somehow, impossibly, did not know what he meant.

“Cas isn’t interested in anybody’s globes!” Dean declared loudly. “See, this is what happens when you sit around all day reading porn. You all turn into giant pervs.”

“I think I just figured out how to defeat Lucifer,” said Sam, struggling to get the words out through his chuckling. “Dean can keep accusing _other_ people of being perverts, and then Hell will freeze over.”

“So I take it going out for a drink really calmed everyone down,” Becky said, giving Chuck a look.

He had the decency to look sheepish. “I wish you _had_ come,” he said. “It was kind of a sausagefest.”

Becky laughed. She felt better all of a sudden, her head clearer. She reached for Chuck, or he reached for her, and they kissed gently on the mouth.

Sam and Dean were still too busy arguing to notice, but even if they hadn’t been, Becky wouldn’t have cared.

“Oh, hey,” Chuck said, drawing back. He pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and smoothed it out on his thigh. “I was looking over your notes... I don’t know, this may be nothing, but did you notice anything about the titles?”

Becky followed his gaze. “Well, they’re kind of bad?” she said after a minute. “Like, weird and vague?”

Chuck nodded excitedly. “Read them all together as a sentence,” he said.

Becky’s initial reaction was skepticism, but in the end he’d come to believe _her_ , so... She scanned the page and read: “ _If on a winter’s night a fangirl, fumbling towards destiny, stretching the limits of mind and body on a quest for the truth, heeds the signs and sends the message_... Oh my god!” she squeed. “Chuck, you’re a genius!”

This caught the others’ attention, and this time Becky did not hold back with the tongue. But she still didn’t care.

“You guys, listen!” Becky declared once Chuck was sufficiently debauched. She reread the the titles in a rush. “Do you realize what this means?”

Sam shifted his weight. “Maybe you can help us out.”

“It means we figured it out! All we have to do,” she said, more slowly, hoping to give her pronouncement more weight, “is _send_ the _message_.”

Sam huffed a breath in through his nostrils. “ _What_ message, Becky?”

“I’m voting for ‘kill me now.’”

Chuck’s palm spread itself warm on the small of her back. “That’s real helpful, Dean,” he said, much to her surprise.

“You want to talk about _helpful_?” Dean looked ready to start throwing punches. “How ’bout you be _helpful_ , Chuck, and stop publishing your badly written slanderous crap and—”

“Dean,” Castiel said quietly.

Dean ignored him. “And get a real—”

“ _Dean_.”

Dean whirled away from Chuck and toward Castiel, who had moved quietly across the room over the course of this argument and settled himself in front of Becky’s computer. “What, Cas, _what_?”

“This is a service for sending messages,” Castiel said, pointing to where Becky’s IM program was still open in the corner of the screen.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure chatting with all of Becky’s creatively-inclined friends will give us just the boost we need.”

Castiel turned and looked at her, a sharp cleverness hiding behind those wide blue eyes. “Becky, do you know anything about this ‘buddy’ of yours known as ‘[](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/profile)[ **renegadeangel**](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/) ’?”

He slurred the name into one long word, but it still registered for Becky. “No one on my buddy list is called that. That’s the name of the person that PM’d me!”

Castiel pointed again. Becky walked over and peered close: [](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/profile)[**renegadeangel**](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/) was online and available.

Becky grabbed at his arm. “Double click! Double click!”

Dean was suddenly at her side, not-so-subtly attempting to shove her away. _Possessive much?_ Becky thought. Then she remembered the story she’d sorta-kinda-accidentally written and began to flush, in her shock nearly oblivious to Dean’s elbow jostling her in the ribs.

Castiel caught her attention, however. “What should I say?”

“‘Stop fucking with us, asswipe’?” Dean suggested.

“I don’t know,” Becky said, forcing herself to stop staring at them both. “I usually just say hi.”

Castiel leaned over and carefully and deliberately began to type.

 

**samlicker81** : Greetings.

Becky was aware of all of them—Sam and Chuck, too, having gathered close—holding their breath. Just when Becky thought she might not be able to take it anymore, the placid green dot next to [](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/profile)[**renegadeangel**](http://renegadeangel.livejournal.com/) ’s name turned into a picture of a pencil.

 

**renegadeangel** : hello, my children

Chuck summed up their collective reaction fairly accurately. “Huh?”

“Ask who it is!” Sam said.

“Yeah, find out who the fuck he thinks he is!”

Castiel hunched his shoulders protectively over the keyboard and slowly typed.

**samlicker81** : To whom are we speaking?

“You are way too polite,” Dean groused.

“And you don’t need to use caps,” Becky added.

**renegadeangel** : i promised you that if you sought me, i would be found. i applaud your efforts and your faith

Sam was giving the computer a disgruntled look. “Is this guy for real?”

“Why is everyone assuming it’s a guy all of a sudden?” Becky asked.

**samlicker81** : we would prefer honesty to applause.

Dean gave Castiel’s shoulder a firm squeeze. “That’s more like it!” Becky tried not to let on that she noticed the way his hand lingered.

This time they had to wait several seconds for a response. Finally:

**renegadeangel** : LOL

**renegadeangel** : i see you have grown up, castiel

Several people in the group sucked in a surprised breath. Castiel’s fists tightened, then released.

**samlicker81** : WHO ARE YOU?

**renegadeangel** : whoa, no need to resort to capslock, there, son

**renegadeangel** : surely you recognize your own father?

Becky was seriously worried for a second that the angel was going to smite her computer. “Whoa, Cas, easy,” Dean said. “It’s just some tool on the internet...it’s not worth getting upset about.”

**renegadeangel** : but perhaps due to the unconventionality of my approach, you require a sign

**renegadeangel** : brb

They stared at the screen for a few seconds, jaws hanging open to various degrees, Castiel still looking wrathful.

**renegadeangel** : b!

**renegadeangel** : here: <http://www.care2.com/send/card/2225>

“Don’t click on that,” Sam said.

Castiel clicked.

They all stared at the little animated .gif of a burning bush. No one made a sound until the instant messaging program pinged again.

**renegadeangel** : j/k!

**renegadeangel** : no, srsly, cas. it’s me.

Castiel buckled forward suddenly, seizing his chest. In the confusion, Dean finally succeeded at pushing Becky aside; he clutched at Castiel’s body. “Cas? Cas!”

Castiel straightened up slowly, his head lolling back on his neck. “The amulet, Dean,” he said, sounding drugged. “It burns...”

Becky snuck a glance at the screen.

**renegadeangel** : see?

Castiel was too busy being divested of his shirt and tie by Dean to reply, so Becky snagged the laptop and turned it to the side.

**samlicker81** : i don’t understand. you’re god?

**samlicker81** : sorry. God

**renegadeangel** : yes, my child

**renegadeangel** : and this is im. like you told cas, you don’t need to use caps

Becky blinked at the screen. She’d actually had weirder things happen to her on the internet, though, so...

**samlicker81** : okay, so you’re god. but why contact *me*?

**renegadeangel** : i told you, i’m a fan of your work. ;-)

**renegadeangel** : srsly, tho: i wanted you all to know that i appreciate everything you’re doing. but i kind of need to keep things on the dl

“ _God_ needs to keep things on the ‘dl’ so he thought he’d give a thumbs up by leaving us messages in dirty fanfic?” Having ascertained that Castiel wasn’t actually being burned by the amulet so much as being made rather flushed by it, Dean was able to return to his twin strengths of sarcasm and glaring.

**samlicker81** : dean wants to know why the runaround

**samlicker81** : sorry, i know, he’s much ruder than i thought from the books

“Hey!”

**renegadeangel** : no, it’s a reasonable question

**renegadeangel** : i couldn’t risk certain dark forces discovering my presence here

**renegadeangel** : they could attack us with viruses or spam

“But you’re _God_ ,” Sam squeaked, the first words he had managed. He coughed and his voice returned to its normal pitch. “Ask Him why He has to worry about computer viruses if He’s God.”

“Maybe he’s not using a Mac,” suggested Chuck.

**samlicker81** : couldn’t you just smite the spam?

**renegadeangel** : some spam is unsmiteable. trufax

**renegadeangel** : but then, that is the nature of the internet, as it is the nature of the universe: i created them both to contain both good and evil, to be navigated by an endless series of choices that are the ultimate expression of free will

“Huh?” said Chuck again.

**samlicker81** : wait, you created the internet?

**renegadeangel** : well, i had a little help from al gore

**renegadeangel** : LOL

Becky decided to be polite.

**samlicker81** : LOL

**renegadeangel** : just j/k. i didn’t create the internet

**renegadeangel** : i AM the internet

They were all silent for a long moment. Then Dean’s stony expression abruptly broke. “All right, Gabriel!” he yelled at the ceiling. “Very funny. We’re not going to say yes no matter how much porn you trick us into reading so you can fucking quit it now!”

“But Dean,” said Castiel, staring up at him with glassy eyes, clutching at his wrist. “My brother could not do this.” He indicated the amulet that lay against his bared chest, making the skin it touched glow like a golden idol in a Steven Spielberg movie. Dean became momentarily distracted.

**samlicker81** : what do you mean YOU are the internet?

**renegadeangel** : i mean, i am the internet. how else do you think this miracle of instant communication, questionable spelling, and instantly available pictures of boobies exists?

**renegadeangel** : i mean srsly, how did you THINK the internet worked?

Chuck said, “It’s a dump truck,” at the same time Sam said, “It’s a series of tubes.”

**samlicker81** : but you’re *god*. why would you

**samlicker81** : WHY?

**renegadeangel** : years ago, i began to feel that i had become disconnected from my creations. i wanted a way to touch as many of them as i could at the same time, to be a part of their daily lives and hopes and dreams, their triumphs and despairs

**renegadeangel** : every time you edit wikipedia, i am there

**renegadeangel** : every time you post a poorly spelled personal ad on craigslist, i am there

**renegadeangel** : every time you use a message board to cheat on your high school english homework, i am there

**renegadeangel** : every time you spend hours watching pointless videos on youtube, i am there

**renegadeangel** : every time you win a scale replica of the tardis on ebay, i am there

**renegadeangel** : every time you view a picture of a cat bearing a funny caption, i am there

**renegadeangel** : and every time you write pornographic fanfiction about real or imagined characters, i am there, becky, my child

“Yeah, that’s beautiful; I’m wiping away invisible crystalline tears as I speak,” said Dean. “You’re fucking around with Chatroulette and there’s a goddamn apocalypse going down!”

“Dean,” said Castiel, quietly. “You’re shouting at a computer.”

Dean whirled on him. “I’m shouting at God!”

“Actually,” Chuck agreed with some reluctance, “you’re shouting at a computer.”

“Well, type what I said!”

**samlicker81** : dean is upset

“‘Upset’? You call this _upset_? Upset doesn’t even begin to—”

**renegadeangel** : have him take the keyboard

Becky wasn’t about to disobey God, even a God who LOL’d at His own jokes. She passed the laptop to Dean.

Dean started to write a long and curseword-filled diatribe, but God was apparently a faster typist. The program chimed twice in quick succession.

**renegadeangel** : dean

**renegadeangel** : *smish*

Dean’s fingers stopped stabbing at Becky’s keys. Slowly, he sank back in his seat. “Oh,” he said.

He blinked several times. Then his fingers returned to the keys. He deleted everything he had written.

**samlicker81** : do sam

“What?” said Sam. “I don’t know...”

He looked wide-eyed and panicky. Becky helped Dean prod him over toward the computer. “Trust me,” Dean said.

Sam thunked down into the chair.

**samlicker81** : hi?

**renegadeangel** : *smish*, sam

Sam started to cry. “Thank you,” he sobbed, then started over.

**samlicker81** : thank you, you don’t know how much this means to me. i’ve been so afraid for so long that i’ve turned myself into too much of a monster to ever be able to be redeemed let alone ever make up for all i’ve done and that fact that you, god, would forgive me and offer your smishes to me truly gives me hope and faith that i will be able to be strong enough--strong enough for you, and for my brother, and for the world--strong enough to say no to lucifer and to fix this mess i’ve made and i promise you, now that you’ve given me your forgiveness and love i won’t let you down, i will see this thing through to the end no matter what and i will make you proud of me and worthy of this great, great gift

**[Could not send the last message because it was too large]**

Sam stared glassy-eyed at the screen for several more seconds.

“Here, let me help,” Becky said gently. She lifted up Sam’s large, unresisting hands and moved them out of the way.

**samlicker81** : thanks

**renegadeangel** : thank YOU, my children--all of you. you alone have proven steadfast and true. keep to your chosen path and *i* have faith that you will succeed in all your endeavors

“But Father—” Castiel murmured, then caught himself and turned to Becky. “Ask him what we should do when we next need his divine wisdom.”

**samlicker81** : cas wants to know how we can contact you for advice and stuff

**renegadeangel** : cas should learn to look to *himself*, to his own heart and mind to guide his decisions. the same holds true for you all

**renegadeangel** : but you shall always be able to find me here if you look for me

**renegadeangel** : sometimes i put myself on invisible because politicians, athletes in championship games, and grammy-nominated musicians always wants to chat and they’re kind of a drag

**renegadeangel** : i’m rly here tho

“Well,” said Chuck, a little shockily. “That’s good to know.”

**renegadeangel** : you can also follow me on twitter!

Becky’s brain was having a hard time processing all of this, but she dutifully typed:

**samlicker81** : same username?

**renegadeangel** : no

The little pencil appeared as God prepared to relay the name behind his 140-character blasts of wisdom.

Before he could finish, however, Sam dove at the keyboard.

**samlicker81** : wait! i have so many important theological questions for you

**samlicker81** : let me start with genesis

The pencil disappeared, then reappeared in quick succession.

**renegadeangel** : er, sorry, gtg

**renegadeangel** : ttfn!

There was a final chime as God signed off.

Silence reigned in the living room of the Prophet Chuck for several long seconds.

The Prophet himself was the first to break it. “Well...” he said slowly. “I think I need to go lie down.”

They all watched as Chuck shuffled out of the room, pausing only to squeeze Becky’s hand. When she turned back around, Dean was nodding to himself. “I’m going to go for a walk. Anybody want to come with?”

In part because they were all feeling fairly stupified, in part because it was freezing cold, nobody volunteered.

“No? Cas?” Dean asked.

“Hmm?” Castiel looked up, somewhat dreamily.

“Come for a walk with me,” Dean repeated. It wasn’t _quite_ a question.

Castiel’s eyes widened; then he stood. He took several steps toward Dean then paused, looking down at himself: tie askew, shirt undone, clothing in a general state of disarray. “Oh,” he said, fingers plucking at his errant buttons.

“Let me help you with that,” Dean said.

They stepped closer. Dean clearly wasn’t very good at fixing someone else’s clothes, because helping Cas with his took a _long time_.

Sam loudly cleared his throat.

Dean shot him a look. “Have you started working on your mash notes to God yet, Sammy?”

Sam flushed. “Shut up, jerk.”

“Bitch.” He turned and wrapped a guiding arm around Castiel’s shoulder. “Let’s go, Cas.”

Becky watched them as they opened the door and stepped out into the night. “There are so many stars,” she heard Castiel say. Then they were alone.

And Becky and Sam were alone.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to ask God your theological questions,” she told him.

Sam let out a sigh. “Yeah, well.” He blushed, and for a second he looked goofy and sweet and strong and tough, all at the same time. “It’s possible I came on a little strong.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about _that_ ,” Becky said.

There was silence for several heart-stopping seconds, but then it happened. Sam laughed.

They grinned at each other for a moment before he sobered. “You should have come to the bar with us, Becky.”

Becky let out a short breath. “Next time,” she promised.

“I’ll hold you to that.” Sam stood, and Becky gathered up her computer and stood with him. “Mind if I crash on the couch?” he asked her.

“Of course not.” She smiled at him again—a less breathless smile, but a good one. “Goodnight, Sam.”

“’Night,” he said, through a yawn.

Becky went up to Chuck’s room, her loyal laptop cradled in her arms. He was still awake, the bedside lamp casting a golden glow on him and the yellow notepad propped open on his knee.

“Hey,” Chuck said. “Are they still here?”

Becky nodded. “Dean and Cas went for a walk. Sam’s crashing on the couch. I hope that’s okay.”

“You left Sam downstairs to come up here with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Then that’s totally okay.”

They grinned at each other dopily, Becky shucking down until she wasn’t wearing anything but Chuck’s t-shirt before climbing into bed.

“Mmm, I like that you’re wearing my shirt.”

“I like it, too.” Becky grinned. When she reached down the bed to snag her laptop, however, the sleeve passed in front of her nose. “Er. It kind of needs to be washed, though.”

“I’ll do laundry tomorrow, I swear.” Chuck glanced, curious but non-invasive, at her screen. “What are you working on?”

She’d opened up Microsoft Word again out of habit, bringing up the story she’d been writing before. She stared at the words at the top of the page.

If on a winter’s night a fangirl, fumbling towards destiny, stretching the limits of mind and body on a quest for the truth, heeds the signs and sends the message, all will be revealed.

“You know what,” she said, closing the laptop, “I think I’m done.”

Grinning, Chuck rolled over and shut off the light.


End file.
